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why a country like China, where apparently (again, I'm just talking from what I know as an outsider) human rights are not always respected and where the government doesn't hesitate to use even violent methods to suppress opposing forces (wether it's about politics, or religion, or both), has been picked as the host for the Olympic Games?

Money. There's a lot of money in China right now. And most international sports competitions have more to do with ads than with anything else... and serving a population of more than a billion people is quite tempting, I'm willing to assert.

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The whole situation is quite confusing to us outsiders, since most of the informations coming from China are also manipulated, it's not easy to get a clear grasp of it. Still, I wonder one thing: why a country like China, where apparently (again, I'm just talking from what I know as an outsider) human rights are not always respected and where the government doesn't hesitate to use even violent methods to suppress opposing forces (wether it's about politics, or religion, or both), has been picked as the host for the Olympic Games? Isn't this a bit of a contradiction?

its wrong to assume but maybe thats one of the reasons the tibetans are protesting now - suppression cant possibly look good for a country thats supposed to host the olympic games right? and the olympics are a big deal, and there is a chance the events and tibet can affect whether it will happen or not

Hello guys, I'm a HAN chinese and I'm living in Beijing now.
Unluckily, my English is VERY poor as I tried to spend a lot of time to read this post. I think maybe I had got yours main idea. Some of these we are in identical.

Now, anyone want to ask me some questions? I will try my best to reply.

No. Despotic States want to use Olympics to show off their integrity and power (as in Berlin Olympic 1936). They do not hesitate to invest incredible amount of money to tempt the Committee. Coherent, though ironically.

No. Despotic States want to use Olympics to show off their integrity and power (as in Berlin Olympic 1936). They do not hesitate to invest incredible amount of money to tempt the Committee. Coherent, though ironically.

Integrity? How can there be any kind of integrity when minorities receive this kind of treatment? Sure, if you throw away ethics, forget about human rights and just care about the economical and political side, you might say there's no contradiction, but since the Olympic Games are supposed to be not just a simple sports event but also to represent and solidify human rights, equality between countries and cultures and races, and all the positive human and social values, how in the world could this situation not appear contradictory? Allow me to feel a bit, well, vexed. :\

No. Despotic States want to use Olympics to show off their integrity and power (as in Berlin Olympic 1936). They do not hesitate to invest incredible amount of money to tempt the Committee. Coherent, though ironically.

The government take money from normally people. After years, suddenly, they find that, even after malversation or some other things, there are still so many money!

Integrity? How can there be any kind of integrity when minorities receive this kind of treatment? Sure, if you throw away ethics, forget about human rights and just care about the economical and political side, you might say there's no contradiction, but since the Olympic Games are supposed to be not just a simple sports event but also to represent and solidify human rights, equality between countries and cultures, and all the positive human and social values, how in the world could this situation not appear contradictory? Allow me to feel a bit, well, vexed. :\

Different treatment among HAN chinese and minorities are really exist.

minorities have a lot of special rights in mainland China.
For example, they can have 2 chindren, they will be given special treatment in some of the important exams, even, in many east china citys, the police will not arrest minorities who violate the law silghtly.

PRC may initiate at their own expense but this years Olympics game will be a complete commercial flop with many sponsors considering or already decided to remove their names as many individual athletes from various nations based on either health and/or political concerns as well.

This will no doubt smear the pride of PRC and will have chilling effect on the Shanghai stock market.

I think you're putting too much faith in the supposed values of the Olympic Games... but reality is harsher than that. Truth is, if the OG didn't generate any kind of revenue, they wouldn't be held. They're in the hands of advertisers, not of human rights activists.

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I think you're putting too much faith in the supposed values of the Olympic Games... but reality is harsher than that. Truth is, if the OG didn't generate any kind of revenue, they wouldn't be held. They're in the hands of advertisers, not of human rights activists.

that is true, look at the last World Cup, I blieve Korea only made to the final cuz it was the host city. The refs are so bias towards Korea in certain games.

Integrity? How can there be any kind of integrity when minorities receive this kind of treatment? Sure, if you throw away ethics, forget about human rights and just care about the economical and political side, you might say there's no contradiction, but since the Olympic Games are supposed to be not just a simple sports event but also to represent and solidify human rights, equality between countries and cultures and races, and all the positive human and social values, how in the world could this situation not appear contradictory? Allow me to feel a bit, well, vexed. :\

Shoud I have written "integrity" with quotation marks? Chinese society today is full of inequalities and difficulties besides the minority problems; the average income in coastal area is as twenty times higher as that of inland. But what is impotant for the authority is the "image" of integrity, not the real one. Through Beijing Olympic, the audience all over the world would get the impression that China is an integral and powerful State. That is the aim.

Your assertion seems too naive. IOC is not a public agency but a private organisation, which earns from the sponsorship and advertisements. Yes the ideal is precious and important, but it has little effect on IOC.

Different treatment among HAN chinese and minorities are really exist.

minorities have a lot of special rights in mainland China.
For example, they can have 2 chindren, they will be given special treatment in some of the important exams, even, in many east china citys, the police will not arrest minorities who violate the law silghtly.

OK, tell me how many Tibetans have their seats in 中国共産党中央政治局 [Politoburo of Communist Party of China] and 中央書記処 [Secretariat]. You don't need to mention 全国人大 [National People's Congress] because it has no real power.

Last edited by LiberLibri; 2008-03-22 at 11:19.
Reason: English names of the organs added (for non-kanji readers)

Shoud I have written "integrity" with quotation marks? Chinese society today is full of inequalities and difficulties besides the minority problems; the average income in coastal area is as twenty times higher as that of inland. But what is impotant for the authority is the "image" of integrity, not the real one. Through Beijing Olympic, the audience all over the world would get the impression that China is an integral and powerful State. That is the aim.

Your assertion seems too naive. IOC is not a public agency but a private organisation, which earns from the sponsorship and advertisements. Yes the ideal is precious and important, but it has little effect on IOC.

It's not about being naive, it's about being coherent. I know that money, economic deals with sponsors and so on are the real engine behind these events (Olympics, World Cup, whatever), but it's sad to see that even when the contradiction is so evident like in this case, there's still a lot of people that react as if it wasn't that much of a big deal. :\

It's not about being naive, it's about being coherent. I know that money, economic deals with sponsors and so on are the real engine behind these events (Olympics, World Cup, whatever), but it's sad to see that even when the contradiction is so evident like in this case, there's still a lot of people that react as if it wasn't that much of a big deal. :\

The thing is, for those of us to which it has been quite evident for a long time that sports events aren't all about friendship and camaraderie and human rights and whatnot, it's no surprise at all.

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Its amazing to watch the Chinese news feeds (Xinhua) and the transmogrification of the facts into a complete rewrite of the events. Unfortunately, the Chinese authorities won't allow independent observers into Tibet to verify events so data is sporadic ... and the Chinese authorities are contradicting themselves in regard to events not helping their credibility.

The Dalai Lama *is* asking people to stop. He's offering to meet Chinese conditions, he's offering inspection of anything he owns. He wants to meet with Chinese officials - he only wants a small level of autonomy something like Hong Kong has.

I can tell you, every time the pro-democratic politicians in Hong Kong try to test the so-called autonomy that was supposed to be promised to Hong Kong by the communists, the communists would quickly berate them for even "daring to contemplate independence". So what the f*** do you communists want?

If you are in full control of HK, then say you have full control of HK, rather than kidding yourself that HK is enjoying full autonomy when I can't even elect my mayor and then misleading people like the Dalai into thinking Tibet can have something that never really existed as long as the commies are in charge.

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That doesn't mean the disaffected Tibetans going to listen to the Lama. They are quite frustrated, especially with the favored treatment going to the Han Chinese immigrants to the area and the high unemployment of young male Tibetans. I'm not going to defend the violence but the Chinese policies toward Tibetan culture pretty much set the table for this kind of sad result. The Han immigrants getting caught in the riots are as much victims of those policies as are the frustrated Tibetans.

Dalai is like the last moderate within the Tibetan community, keeping the Tibetans from going too radical. Once he goes, all hell will break lose, and Tibetans will end up hating us Han Chinese for generations, and we'll have these ungrateful commies to thank for.

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As far as "freed" or "occupied".... well, the Chinese authorities can be said to be doing the same thing to the Tibetans that they've done to all the Chinese regions and the Chinese people. Enforced policies and central planning, cultural revision.

I personally don't give a damn whether Tibetans want independence or not, but I'm annoyed at the commies sullying the name of my race time and time again, giving the ill-informed westerner more excuses to bash everything Chinese here and there. They are already doing that in the Japanese 2ch forums, which is usually filled by right-wing xenophobic types.

yes, people still practice confucianism today because it teaches basic moral.

I guess u never practiced buddism, avowed Buddhists in china means u go to Buddist temple once a week or maybe more, joing the monks to read versus, study philosophy. It's like in North America, you have avowed catholic that goes to Misa every weekend, and there are people say they are catholic or christian but never goes to the church.

Correction Taoism was a religion before confucian was even born. It was the primary religion in China until the introduction of Buddhism and both religion has exist side by side in China for the last several thousand years.

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Originally Posted by LiberLibri

Shoud I have written "integrity" with quotation marks? Chinese society today is full of inequalities and difficulties besides the minority problems; the average income in coastal area is as twenty times higher as that of inland. But what is impotant for the authority is the "image" of integrity, not the real one. Through Beijing Olympic, the audience all over the world would get the impression that China is an integral and powerful State. That is the aim.

Your assertion seems too naive. IOC is not a public agency but a private organisation, which earns from the sponsorship and advertisements. Yes the ideal is precious and important, but it has little effect on IOC.

Before China open up for foreign investment in the mid-late 80s, the coast are was almost as poor as the inland area. It is only in the last 20 years that the coast area achieve is current wealth. It is only been about 20 years since China open itself op economically. Of course thier is going to be inequalities between the coastal and inland areas. It is going to take time for the inladn area to catch up witht he coastal areas and that is whether the chinese remains communist or change into a democratic one.

Also Tibet before the the dissoulation of the Qing Dynasty which was hasten by the Opium War in which the British force China to make Opium legal. Tibet was a part of China for almost 300 hundred years.

Also Tibet before the the dissoulation of the Qing Dynasty which was hasten by the Opium War in which the British force China to make Opium legal. Tibet was a part of China for almost 300 hundred years.

I doubt it. Firstly, Qing was Manchurian Empire, not of Han. It does not justify Han's rule over Tibetan people. To my eyes, your insistence seems like Saddam's that Qatar should be a part of Iraq because both were once equally conquered by Ottoman. Secondly, "a protectorate of A" and "a part of A" should be strictly distinguished. Tibet had been for long a sort of protectionate of Qing dynasty, it is true, since 1639. But Qing had never once had direct control over the area. In 1912, Tibet declared the end of protection relationship, and enjoyed independence until 1951, when the Communist China invaded and annexated forcibly into it.

I think the Olympics should be boycotted . A country which illegally occupies another for more 50 odd years doesnt deserve the games . The sad part is Yes it will be devastating blow for Chinese Pride but the fun part is it will be a mighty smack on the cheek for commies.

They are leaving no stone unturned for the games to be a success so it will be befitting for them if games are boycotted . I hope some athlete who wins and event should drape himself with a Tibetan flag .

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Originally Posted by Xellos-_^

Also Tibet before the the dissoulation of the Qing Dynasty which was hasten by the Opium War in which the British force China to make Opium legal. Tibet was a part of China for almost 300 hundred years.

That doesnt make a Tibet a part of China . Korea was almost like a fiefdom of Japan for nearly 200 years that doesnt give Japanese right over Korea . Also when Buddhism was introduced in Tibet , China and Tibet were two separate countries . I do remember a Chinese princess was married off to a Tibetan King 600 AD , that was the time when Buddhism gained ground in Tibet . There is a famous Tibetan Temple based on that princess.

The King I am talking about was Songtsän Gampo ( Hurray for Discovery Channel)